is Muhammad ibn Khalid al-Kufi, whom I do not know; the rest of its narrators are trustworthy.”

I say: It was this statement of his—that he did not know the narrator—that prompted me to document this hadith here once more, after I had previously traced it back to several Companions, including this Abu Juhaifah, through three routes from him, one of them being this route of Abu Rajaʾ, in the first volume of this series, no. 343. In its new edition, I quoted the aforementioned statement without commenting on it, because the sources that have now enabled me to identify this Muhammad ibn Khalid al-Kufi—such as Ibn Hibban’s al-Thiqat and al-Tabarani’s al-Muʿjam al-Kabir—had not yet been printed at that time.

I had also quoted al-Mundhiri as saying regarding one of al-Bazzar’s two chains of transmission: “Its narrators are trustworthy.”

When I came across its chain of transmission through Kashf al-Astar, I deemed its chain sound in the new edition, saying:

“It is sound, and its narrators are trustworthy narrators of the two Shaykhs, apart from al-Bazzar’s shaykh, al-ʿAbbas ibn Jaʿfar—the Baghdadi—who is trustworthy.”

I did not know that he corroborated Muhammad ibn Khalid, owing to the unavailability of al-Muʿjam al-Kabir, as mentioned above. But now, upon comparing its chain with al-Bazzar’s chain, the corroboration has become clear, for al-Bazzar’s chain is as follows: “Al-ʿAbbas ibn Jaʿfar narrated to us: Ishaq ibn Mansur narrated to us,” with the rest of the chain as above.

This is a strong corroboration for Muhammad ibn Khalid, showing that he had accurately retained the hadith. Therefore, al-Haythami should not have declared it defective on his account, even if it were assumed that he was unknown and unrecognized, as is well known to those versed in this discipline. It appears, however, that al-Bazzar’s narration escaped him, so he did not come across this corroboration and consequently said what he said. This is indicated by his failure to attribute it to al-Bazzar, unlike al-Mundhiri, may Allah Most High have mercy on him.

This, then, is the reason for documenting the hadith again.